


Two can play at this game

by andonewillbringhisfall



Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow & Related Fandoms
Genre: April Fools Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-16 21:24:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11837334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andonewillbringhisfall/pseuds/andonewillbringhisfall
Summary: Agatha tells Baz that Simon loves him, but it's the day before April Fools, and Baz is not falling for that.





	Two can play at this game

**Author's Note:**

> Hey <3 Another fic from my Tumblr. Have fun.

**March 31.**

BAZ:

‘What did you do to him?’

Snow’s girlfriend has followed me out of the dining hall, her hands on her hips and her pretty eyes glaring.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I say, arching one eyebrow, and it’s true; I have no fucking clue what she’s on about, except that it’s about Snow. Everything is about Snow.

‘So this isn’t your doing?’ Her eyes are still squinted suspiciously.

‘Sadly, I can’t take credit for whatever has befallen Snow, but I’d love to hear about it.’ I pretend that I’m not worried. I tell myself that I’m glad if he’s hurt.

She huffs. ‘Just stay away from him, Baz.’

‘That’s going to be difficult, given that we share a room,’ I drawl. I suppose it’s no use telling her that I can never get far enough away from him. (I can never get close enough, either.)

‘I’m serious. I know you’re enemies and all, but that’s just politics. If you break his heart I swear Penelope will curse you so hard you’ll still be screaming from across the Veil. Hell, I’ll even do it myself.’ She’s practically spitting fire at this point.

‘Wellbelove, what the  _fuck_  are you on about?’

She sighs and crosses her arms. ‘Simon broke up with me.’

I try to squash down the hopeful feeling in my chest. It’s not like this is going to do me any good. (Anything is possible). (No, not this.)

‘My condolences,’ I say drily. ‘Or perhaps I should deliver them to Snow.’

‘He broke up with me because of  _you_ ,’ she snaps. ‘Because of his  _feelings for you_.’

‘Excuse me?’ I try not to let it show on my face. How fast my heart is beating. How much I want this to be true.

‘Just don’t use this to hurt him,’ she insists. ‘That would be low, even for you. Just  _leave him alone_.’

‘Sorry, I’m still stuck on the part where you said Snow has feelings for me?’ My voice sounds too high.

‘Yeah, well, so am I,’ Wellbelove mutters. ‘I mean it, Baz. Don’t hurt him.’

‘What makes you think I can?’ Either Wellbelove is mistaken, or I must be hallucinating. Snow can’t have feelings for me. Snow hates me. He thinks I’m every kind of evil he’s ever known.

‘Because he told me,’ she says. ‘He says he’s in love with you, and I sure hope for his sake that it’s not true. I know you don’t think I’m much of a threat but I promise you, if you hurt someone I care about, I’ll fucking end you.’

‘Right,’ I say. I’m not scared of Wellbelove, but the way she’s looking at me right now, maybe I judged her too quickly. I want to tell her that she doesn’t need to worry, because I’m so in love with Simon Snow that even on good days I think it’s going to kill me, and all of this sounds way too good to be true.

‘I mean it,’ she says, and turns to walk away.

‘Noted,’ I manage to choke out, and now that her back is turned, I let the mask fall. I’m standing rooted to the spot staring after her with what must be a completely shell-shocked look on my face and –  _Aleister fucking Crowley_.

Simon Snow can’t be in love with me. It’s impossible. It’s brilliant.

I look back through the door to the dining hall, and I see Wellbelove walk back to her table, and I realise Snow has been watching for her to come back.

Wait. There’s something I’m missing.

Why would she tell me that Snow has feelings for me, if she thinks I’m going to use it to hurt him?

And then I remember. Today is the last day of March. And that means tomorrow…

I draw in a sharp breath. It feels like I’ve been kicked in the gut.  _Fuck him_. I fucking believed her, even if it was just for a minute. Fuck him for doing this to me. I want to march in there and drag him out of his chair and beat the living daylights out of him (I don’t. I don’t want to hurt him). I want to break down and cry, right here in front of the entire school. Natasha Pitch’s son, the vampire, a heartbroken, sobbing mess.

Alright. Fine, Snow. Fucking fine.

Two can play at this game.

 

SIMON:

‘ _You told him?_ ’

Agatha looks defiant. ‘He was going to figure it out anyway, Simon. You know that.’

_‘Why would you tell him?_ ’

‘Sorry! I’m sorry. But it’s true.’

I can’t believe this. What must he be thinking? He’s probably laughing at me, or he’s repulsed by the idea, or he’s going to use this to push me to tears. Most likely a combination of all three.

‘How could you, Agatha?’

She sticks out her bottom lip. ‘I’m really sorry. Truly. But I swear I’ve got your back if he tries anything funny. Or if he hurts you with it. Seriously. Just fucking tell me and I’ll kill him.’

I’d be touched by how far she’s willing to go to protect me if I wasn’t so mortified.

‘I can’t believe you told him.’

She slumps down in her chair. ‘I know. God. Sorry.’

I sigh. ‘How am I going to face him?’ It’s been hard enough to be in the same room as him for the past few weeks, trying to control my magic and trying to keep my face straight and my eyes away from him. I’ve fallen in love with my roommate, who wants me dead. I was already doomed, and now that he knows, he’s going to break me with it.

‘If it helps,’ she says, hesitating, ‘he seemed more shocked than anything else.’

‘Yeah. Great. Thanks.’

‘I’m really sorry, Simon. I got carried away.’

‘I know. I appreciate you sticking up for me. But… really. Fuck.’

I can’t face him. But I can’t avoid him forever.

*

He’s not even looking at me. We’ve shared every single class together all day, and he doesn’t turn to me  _once_. It’s driving me crazy, not knowing. At least, I think that’s what’s driving me crazy, and not just the fact that he hasn’t looked at me when I so desperately want him to. Even if hatred and disdain is all I ever see in those grey eyes.

He should be looking at me. Right? With disgust, or disbelief, or scorn.

Or something else, like warmth, or love, or  _want_.

I wonder what his eyes look like when they go soft.

Fuck that. I’m never going to find out. Baz has completely ruined my talent for not thinking about things I don’t want to think about.

Doesn’t this  _bother_  him? Or amuse him? Or at least…  _something._  He doesn’t look at me once all day, and he looks just as cool as ever, and it makes me want to run across the classroom and punch him or kiss him or do something just to make him lose his cool. Just to have some kind of effect on him.

Well, fuck him. Fuck him for not caring that I’m in love with him. Fuck him for being able to get to me so easily, when no matter what I do he’ll just raise an eyebrow and move on with his life. (His un-life. Fuck him for that too, for the fact that I don’t even care that he’s a vampire. He’d never bite a human.  _Never_. I haven’t asked, but I know it.)

Crowley. Agatha said she threatened him if he ever used this to hurt me, but he’s hurting me anyway by doing  _absolutely nothing_. I can never win. How can you win, when you’re in love with the person who hates you most?

**April 1.**

It must be past midnight, and I can’t sleep. Baz has his back to me, which is good because I can’t see his face. His face always looks different when he sleeps, softer, like maybe if I touched his cheek he would open his eyes blearily and give me a sleepy smile. It’s too easy to forget that he’s still a git who’s out to bring my downfall, when he looks like that. It’s too easy to convince myself that loving him makes sense after all.

Now he’s got his back to me, and I turn my back to him, but I can’t stop worrying. I wanted to avoid coming back to our room until I was sure he’d be asleep, but the tension was too much and I came up early. I had to see him, I had to know what he’d say to me, and just get it over with. I’ve been living with him tormenting me for seven years – whatever he’d dish, I could take it. Probably.

But he still didn’t say anything, or even look at me. He didn’t come into the room until the sun was long gone, and then he went straight into the shower and to bed without showing any sign that he even realised I was there.

It’s fucking torture.

If this was his plan to throw me off my game and make me miserable, then it’s working. I want to shake him and beg him to just say something so I know where I stand.

I sigh and roll over again, but sleep still doesn’t come.

*

At some point I must have eventually dozed off, because now it’s morning, and Baz is thankfully still asleep. I scramble up and into the shower.

I need to make a plan. I need to decide how I’m going to deal with this.

I guess if he keeps ignoring me, I can just pretend that he doesn’t know. Or I could confront him. But then I might go off, and I don’t want to hurt him.

Maybe Agatha only implied it, and he missed the point, and he doesn’t actually know how I feel at all?

No. He’s too smart for that. And Agatha made it pretty clear what she’d told him.

I get dressed in the bathroom, and when I come out, Baz is sitting up on his bed. My heart jumps in my throat. He’s not doing anything, just sitting there, like he’s waiting. Then he looks straight at me.

‘Simon.’

I freeze.

‘Y-yeah?’ I gulp.

He stands up and crosses the room until he’s standing right in front of me, his eyes holding mine the entire time. I can’t look away from him. I can hardly breathe.

_Anathema_ , I want to whisper, but I can’t seem to open my mouth. And he doesn’t look like he wants to hurt me. There’s barely an inch of space between us, and his eyelids are drooping, and his hand is on the back of my neck.

Aleister Crowley, I think he’s going to kiss me. I think –

I gasp, and then he catches my lips with his, and he’s kissing me slowly, with his mouth parted. His hand on my neck is cold but his mouth is warm, and my eyes are closed, and it feels  _so good_. He presses me back until I feel the wall at my back, and it’s the only thing holding me up.

Baz is kissing me, and it feels like everything I ever imagined, and it tastes like everything I ever wanted. I didn’t know he could be this gentle, and I didn’t know that Baz – cold, distant, sneering Baz – could kiss so deeply. He’s pushing me, and I’m too shocked to push back, so I just let him kiss me and convince me that I was wrong about everything. I let him convince me that he doesn’t hate me, and that he doesn’t want to hurt me, and that he feels everything I’ve been feeling towards him.

I reach up and grab his shirt collar just as he pulls away, leaving the tiniest sliver of space between us.

‘Baz –’ I whimper.  _Don’t stop._

And then he moves his head so his mouth is right by my ear.

My eyes are still closed, and my heart is pounding so loudly it’s embarrassing. I clutch him tighter.

And then I hear his low voice in my ear.

‘April Fools, Snow.’

He steps away and walks calmly out of the room.

Oh.

_Oh._

I’m a fucking idiot.

Crowley, I  _believed_  him. I thought he wanted me. I thought –

Fucking hell. It was all a trick.

I slide down to the floor, trying to hold back the tears, trying to stop the hurt –

_I believed him._

BAZ:

I don’t know if that was worth it.

I wanted to beat him at his own game. I wanted to get back at him for trying to trick me like that. But I think maybe I just wanted an excuse to kiss him, and when I finally did, I pushed myself to the brink of my self-control and I almost lost it.

I don’t know if it was worth it, because now I have something to play back in my mind and torture myself with and now I’ve had a taste of what I can never have again. I may have beat Snow at his own game, but I’m the one who’s going to suffer for it.

But for worse or for better, I can now live the rest of my life knowing that I kissed Simon Snow. And it was everything I ever thought it would be.

*

Snow doesn’t show up to the first two classes of the day. I want to think that it’s because of me (no, I don’t. I wanted to unnerve him. I didn’t want him to be bothered by it.). He shows up to lunch, and he looks like a wreck. His hair is messier than usual –  _I did that_  – and he’s clearly only made a half-hearted attempt to get it back to normal. His eyes are downcast, and he doesn’t wolf down his food as he normally would. His friends are trying to talk to him, but he doesn’t seem to be responding.

Is that because of me?

Did I hurt him? It was just a kiss. Snow was the one who started this, for Crowley’s sake.

I try not to make it too obvious that I’m watching him. Watching his mouth, that was on mine mere hours ago. Watching his hands that he’s using to pick at his food.

Something is different, and I realise when we get to our next class that it’s Snow’s magic. Rather than rolling off him in waves and making the air around him hazy, it burns its way to the back of my throat. This isn’t the usual explosion of anger and frustration, it’s something else.

When I can’t take it any longer, I turn around in my seat. ‘Snow,’ I say in a low voice. ‘Can you keep that down?’

Slowly, he lifts his gaze to meet mine. His face is flushed, and his expression is darker than I’ve ever seen it. ‘No.’

It’s definitely because I kissed him. I’ve thrown him off.  _Good_. But as I’m turning back around, I see a look cross his face, and he looks lost and miserable and it makes me want to break something.

He bangs his way out of the classroom, slamming his shoulder into walls and into people (by accident) (I think), heading towards the Wavering Wood. He’s probably going to start hacking at a tree in there. I’ve seen him do it before, after I’ve taunted him almost to the point of going off.

Fine, so I’ve upset him and pissed him off. It serves him right for trying to pull that trick on me.

Not that he knew how much it would hurt, because he doesn’t know how I feel, but still.  _Still_. He had to know I would retaliate.

*

Hacking at the tree or whatever he did in the Wood hasn’t seemed to help him. His magic still feels on the brink of spilling over when he gets back to the room at night, and he won’t look in my direction. I’m sitting at my desk, and my eyes follow him across the room.

‘Evening, Snow,’ I sneer. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t blow up the entire Wood.’

He doesn’t say anything, curling up on his bed with his back to me.

‘Snow,’ I say. ‘I’m talking to you.’

He doesn’t answer.

‘Come on. Stop acting like a kicked puppy. You started it.’

Snow’s the one sulking, and I’m the one who’s in love with him. Well, no-one ever said life was fair.

I sigh. ‘I beat you at your own game, and now you can’t deal with it?’

He mumbles something.

‘What?’

He growls and sits up so he’s facing me. His eyes are puffy and red, and my breath catches.

‘I  _said,_ what fucking game, Baz? I’m not playing a game.’

I sneer, standing up and leaning against the desk with my arms crossed. ‘Nice try, Snow. You tried to get me first, and I retaliated. That’s how we work, isn’t it? So get over it.’

‘I can’t just  _get over it_. That’s now how it works. Crowley, Baz, this is low. Even for you.’

I try to stay calm. It’s what infuriates him the most, anyway, but it’s fucking hard when he’s growling at me like that and I can’t stop thinking about the kiss and I can’t stop remembering what it felt like, that one moment yesterday when I thought he felt the same way about me. And the moment after, when I realised it was just a prank.

‘Do I have to remind you – again – that you were the one who started it?’

‘I didn’t want this!’ Snow yells. ‘I don’t want anything from you! Just leave me alone.’

‘What is your problem?’ I growl. He’s getting agitated, and his magic is singeing the air, but he can’t hurt me here. I stand up and stalk towards him so I’m towering over his bed. ‘So you can play whatever trick you want but your evil roommate can’t possibly fight back against the precious Chosen One?’

‘What did I ever do to you?’ he shouts.

You made me fall in love with you, stupid git.

‘If you want to play games with me, Snow,’ I say, my voice deadly, ‘expect me to play you right back. Understood?’

‘I don’t know what game you’re playing,’ he spits out, ‘except for the one where you do everything you can to hurt me, and you’ve done enough, Baz, you  _win_ , for Crowley’s sake. Congratulations, you broke my fucking heart, what more do you want?’

My mouth goes dry.  _Oh._  No. No way.

I back off, sitting down on the edge of my bed.

I think I’ve made a huge mistake.

SIMON:

There’s a long silence. I need him to leave, but I don’t want to beg. He’s already won.

I can’t look at him.

I hear him take a breath.

‘Wellbelove was telling the truth.’ His voice is quiet.

The fight has gone out of me. I sigh. ‘Of course she was telling the truth, what the fuck did you think?’

‘I thought it was an April Fools trick.’

I still can’t look at him. ‘I wouldn’t, Baz. I’m not you.’

‘Neither would I,’ he says. ‘Simon. I didn’t think she was telling the truth. I wasn’t trying to hurt you. Not like this.’

‘Great,’ I say flatly. ‘That makes it so much better. Apology not accepted.’

I will not cry. Not again.

He gets up and suddenly he’s sitting on the edge of my bed. I pull my knees up to my chest, pressing myself back into the wall. He’s too close.

‘I just –’ he says, and I’ve never heard his voice like this before. It’s quiet, and raw, and anguished. ‘I just don’t understand. How can you – how was I supposed to believe her?’

I shrug. I just want him to go.

‘Listen, I only kissed you to get back at you. I was trying to beat you at your own game. I didn’t know.’

I shrug again. (This almost makes it worse. Now he’s being kind and honest and I can’t even hate him. Now I just want him to kiss me again.)

‘But that wasn’t the only reason,’ he says, slowly, hesitantly. ‘I also just wanted an excuse to kiss you. Without having to admit that I – that I have –’

My eyes jerk up to his face.

‘I have – Simon –’

He can’t say it. I’ve never seen him like this.

‘I’m in l-’

‘Don’t,’ I interrupt. I can’t hear him say that he loves me. I can’t.

‘Simon.’

_Stop calling me that._

‘Please don’t,’ I say.

‘Why?’  he asks. He holds my gaze, perfectly still, but there’s so much going on behind his eyes that I can’t see. ‘I’m trying to be honest with you.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ I say. ‘I think you’re going to convince me that everything’s okay and you love me and then you’ll turn around and say it was all an April Fools trick.’

‘Simon, please,’ he says. ‘I made a mistake.’

I want to believe him. I do, more than anything. But he tricked me once, and Baz wouldn’t be Baz if he wasn’t plotting against me, so why not now?

‘Simon.’

If he says that one more time, I’m going to lose it.

‘I love you, Simon.’

**April 2.**

BAZ:

I’m almost convinced that I’ve fucked things up for good when he scrambles onto his knees, and suddenly he’s holding onto my face with both hands and kissing me urgently. I kiss him back, pulling him closer, threading my fingers through his hair.

I need to make him believe me, because Simon Snow deserves to be loved, and he deserves to know that he is loved – so much, in fact – and I need him to never doubt it. I don’t know if he can trust my words after everything that’s happened between us, so I try to show him with my actions, matching his desperation.

He pins me down onto the bed, his grip tight on my shoulders, and it feels like he’s never planning on letting me go.

_Good._  Never let me go, Simon Snow.

‘If this is what it takes to convince you,’ I say, when I can finally catch my breath, ‘I can keep doing this. Every day. Whenever you want.’

He curls up against me, pressing a kiss to my shoulder.

‘I love you too, Baz.’

‘Really.’

He huffs. ‘Oh, come off it. You knew that.’

Something occurs to me, and I look over my shoulder at the clock on our nightstand.

‘Hey, Simon. It’s past midnight.’

‘So? Are you going to turn into a pumpkin?’ His arm tightens around my waist.

‘No. It’s April second.’

‘Oh.’

‘No more tricks,’ I say.

‘Yeah. Hm. You know, Agatha is really going to kill you if you break my heart.’

‘Not likely,’ I say.

He looks up at me with wide blue eyes. ‘No, she will. She means it, and Penny –’

‘I won’t break your heart, Simon,’ I interrupt him.

‘Good. You’d better not.’ He closes his eyes, snuggling closer, and I barely hear it, but it’s definitely there – ‘git.’

‘Twat,’ I whisper back.

‘Arsehole.’

‘Alright, love,’ I say. ‘I get it.’

He giggles. I smile.

If this is a game, maybe it doesn’t need to have one winner and one loser. Maybe we want the same thing. Maybe we’re on the same side, and we’re both hopeless (April) fools, but I think we both won.


End file.
